SONOMA, California - After leading the Verizon IndyCar Series point’s race for the entire season, Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya could not close out the championship.
Enter “The Closer” - Scott Dixon.
The driver from Auckland, New Zealand kept his cool and capitalized on an unbelievable mistake by Team Penske midway through the race. That allowed Dixon to win his fourth Verizon IndyCar Series championship with a victory in Sunday’s Go Pro Grand Prix of Sonoma.
With Dixon’s victory and Montoya’s sixth-place finish, the two drivers finished tied with 556 points but Dixon was awarded the title based on tie-breaker - three wins to Montoya’s two.
Ironically, when Montoya won his only championship as a rookie in CART in 1999, he finished tied with Dario Franchitti but won on the same tie-breaker - seven wins to Franchitti’s three.
“Congratulations on the win,” Target/Chip Ganassi Racing managing director Mike Hull radioed to Scott Dixon. “We won the championship.”
“Woo, Hoo!!” Dixon radioed back. “Thank you, man, thank you guys for everything.”
Dixon, who was a close friend with the late Justin Wilson, had an emotional week yet arrived at Sonoma extremely focused on a championship.
“This is what we came here for this weekend,” Dixon said. “It was a long shot but we knew we had shot at it. All of us this week raced with heavy hearts. Justin Wilson and everyone in his family are in our thoughts. He is such a great guy and that made it hard this week.
“Team Target and Chevrolet – I still can’t believe it. As Chip Ganassi said, this is the sweetest one yet.”
Montoya and Will Power did the one thing that Team Penske stresses not to do at every race - “Do not take each other out.” The two championship contenders collided on a restart on Lap 39 of Sunday’s Go Pro Grand Prix of Sonoma and it dramatically turned the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series championship upside-down.
Power had led much of the first half of the Verizon IndyCar Series season-finale before the incident on the restart. Montoya tagged his teammate, Power, in the rear of the car in Turn 5 and both cars suffered wing damage. The yellow flag waved and that allowed Montoya to pit for a new front wing assembly. He was running 14th at the time. Power also came into the pits for repairs.
Montoya dropped all the way back to 23rd and Power was 22nd. Rahal was 11th and Dixon ninth with half the race remaining.
When three-time Verizon IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon took the lead on Lap 51 in the 85-lap race, it put the driver from Target/Chip Ganassi Racing in prime position to win his fourth IndyCar title. Dixon had entered Sunday’s double-points season-finale third in the standings, 47 behind leader Montoya. Graham Rahal entered the race second in points, 34 behind Montoya.
Dixon’s fourth championship may have been his most stunning. He knew his chances at the title would take some hard work and a little bit of problems for Montoya.
He was able to get both.
Montoya was attempting to get his second career series championship. He won the CART title in 1999. Dixon has won titles in 2003, 2008 and 2013.
Dixon’s victory was also the 100th IndyCar win for Chip Ganassi Racing. The first was on March 20, 1994 when Michael Andretti won at Surfers Paradise in Australia.
Chip Ganassi Racing won the 1996 CART championship with Jimmy Vasser, two more titles with Alex Zanardi from 1997-98 and Montoya won the 1999 CART championship as a rookie. Dixon has won the championship four times - the same number that former driver Dario Franchitti accumulated - his last three IndyCar titles with Ganassi.
It was the team’s 11th total IndyCar Series championship counting CART and the current Verizon IndyCar Series.
“Scott Dixon is the driver of a generation,” Ganassi said. “This is our sweetest championship ever.”
Dixon paid tribute to his friend and former driver, Franchitti, and said this is how Franchitti won some of his championships when Dixon finished second to have teammate.
As Target/Chip Ganassi Racing celebrated the championship, Montoya was left to try to explain how he blew it.
“We had a good car. We had a good start and, you know, we did everything we needed to do at the beginning,” Montoya said. “Will (Power) overshot and I was fighting with (Josef) Newgarden, we shot the corner, we got inside and (Will) cut across and I was there, and we touched and that was it. We came from behind and did our best, just wasn't enough. It's tough there, tires are going off, and it's one of those days. As I told you, it could happen, and it happened. It sucks, but when you make double points the last race in a road course and you change the tire and you do everything you did for this weekend and you put so many variables, it doesn't even matter what you do all year.
“Dixon had a (crap) season all year and had one good race, and we paid the penalty.”
Montoya can take some solace into the offseason that he won his second Indianapolis 500 on May 24.
“Yeah, we had a great year,” he said. “We opened the year with a win and we won the Indy 500 and led the points all year. Yeah, we did ‑ as I said, it would have been great if we could close it, and there were so many variables, we got through Mid‑Ohio and here again, and that's what it is. It's racing, and we move on.”
The first caution period of the race wasn’t until Lap 33 when Lucca Filippi’s Chevrolet sputtered slowly on the track. Power had a sizeable lead over Josef Newgarden at the time of the yellow with Dixon third, Hunter-Reay fourth, Montoya fifth and Rahal sixth. The pits opened on Lap 35 and Montoya, who was pitting way back on pit road, was able to get in and out safely. Rahal’s crew attempted to make a wing adjustment and had issues trying to get a wheel loose.
Sebastian Saavedra stayed out under caution and was the leader ahead of Andretti Autosport teammates Marco Andretti and Oriol Servia. Dixon and Power were 11th and 12th when the green flag waved on Lap 39.
By the end of that lap, the pivotal moment of the race happened when the two Team Penske teammates crashed into each other.
The green flag came back out on Lap 43 and Saavedra was in the lead followed by Andretti, Tony Kanaan, Servia and Sebastien Bourdais.
Dixon was the highest-running championship contender at the restart in ninth. Rahal and Dixon both started to pick off the cars in front of them as they tried to capitalize on Montoya’s mistake.
Saavedra pitted as the leader on Lap 48 along with Servia. As that group of drivers began to cycle through for pit stops, Dixon was the leader on Lap 51, Rahal was fourth and Montoya was 16th and Power 17th.
Rahal’s rear tires began to degrade and he drove off course several times while he was running sixth. Dixon continued to keep his Chevrolet out front with 25 laps to go.
Newgarden, who entered the race a distant sixth in the points, came into the pits on Lap 61 and his car caught on fire. Dixon pitted as the leader on lap later and his Target/Chip Ganassi Racing team got him in and out of the pits flawlessly.
Hunter-Reay took over the lead of the race after his stop. Rahal pitted one lap later for his final stop after he had fought his car over the final portion of the race when his rear tires had degraded.
After pit stops had cycled through, Dixon was back in the lead and on his way to an apparent championship. Montoya pitted on Lap 64 and had to finish at least sixth to win the title. Following his stop he was 17th.
The yellow flag waved after James Jakes slammed his Honda into the Turn 9 tire barrier to bunch up the field.
When the green flag waved again on Lap 69, Dixon was the leader and Montoya was 12th. He had to get up to fifth to win the championship. He gained one position when he passed Takuma Sato.
Carlos Munoz beached his race car in the hairpin after an incident with Jack Hawksworth and that brought out another full-course yellow on Lap 71. Montoya was up to eighth - just three positions away from the championship.
Racing resumed on Lap 74 with 11 laps to go.
Dixon got a great restart on Hunter-Reay with three Ganassi cars in the top four positions. Bourdais pulled away from Montoya, who was determined to try to make just three more positions to save a championship.
With nine laps to go, Rahal spun out after Bourdais ran into the back of his Honda. Those were the two drivers in front of Montoya but INDYCAR officials kept the green flag out and Montoya was in seventh place.
Bourdais was assessed a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact and that moved Montoya into sixth place. He needed one more position to clinch the title but was 3 seconds behind fifth-place Ryan Briscoe.
Montoya was unable to catch up and that is what lost him the championship.
After Rahal got rear-ended by his former teammate Sebastien Bourdais, he fell back to 19th and would go on to finish 18th in the race and fourth in the championship.
If he had passed Stefano Coletti, Rahal would have been third in the points instead of fourth.
“Bourdais just drilled me and around I went,” Rahal said. “What can he say? He comes up and said he didn’t mean to, but he cost me third in the championship. Bourdais has done that in recent times for some reason but he is a champion. He was a tremendous driver … and he is a tremendous driver now. Was Bourdais a teammate like Justin Wilson? No, but he’s a tremendous driver.
“On a day like today he is a driver you should have high expectations for.”
With two wins, Rahal entered the race second in points. Even though he finished behind Power in the standings, it was a breakout year for the son of three-time CART champion and 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal.
“All in all today was tough - just a tough day,” Rahal said. “But having said that I’m not disappointed. We’ve had a great season. Our guys did a tremendous job this season. They deserve a tremendous effort. People questioned me last year whether I could compete with Scott Dixon and Will Power and this year I did.
“But today was brutal. It’s frustrating.”
Dixon continued to prove why he is the best driver of his era. His latest championship and victory serves as a testament to that.
**
Be sure to catch Bruce Martin's Honda IndyCar Report on RACEDAY on FOX Sports Radio every Sunday from 6-8 a.m. ET.
Your Privacy Choices | Closed Captioning 
